Rommel had his legs crossed, leaning back with one arm hanging over the side of the rickshaw as the little Irishman pulled him along, legs kicking madly to keep pace with the interstate traffic. Occasionally a puff of pipe smoke escaped his lips, like the smoke stack on a train.

The rush of the wind filled Rommel's ears, and the hum of tires on the road. He could barely make out the engines of the cars around him, somehow hushed by the evening light. The Beatles' Maxwell's Silver Hammer belted from the stereo of an '89 Ford Aerostar. The silhouettes of three heads bobbed to the music in the backseat. The driver remained motionless, the passenger seat empty.

A bloodhound hung its head out the window of a red pickup, its ears nearly ripped off at 75 mph. Rommel scratched its head as the rickshaw passed by. The dog barked approvingly, and the truck's driver waved.

The sun dropped suddenly below the horizon, and the road ahead arched into infinity. The stars burst forth, green in the indigo sky. The engine noise returned. The world around vanished, but for headlights, and fires flickering at the tops of distant smokestacks as steel was processed into it various forms, stainless or otherwise.

They pulled off at a rest area, primarily for the sake of the Irishman. Rommel didn't even need to piss, but slowly made his way to the Coke machine, for a ginger ale. He didn't need the ginger ale, but hoped it would make him have to piss so the next stop could be justified. A woman asked him for the time.

“I'm currently getting a drink,” Rommel said.

The woman nodded then hurried to her car, late for something of over-inflated importance. If the guy really wanted to get into her pants, he could wait a few minutes, order an appetizer. There were always 10 minutes of previews before the movie. No one actually dies on Survivor. You'll see them again. You'll see everybody again.

Downing his sixth Coke, the Irishman waved a jittery arm, and Rommel ambled back to the rickshaw, assuming the same position in the plush, velvet seat. He finished his Schweppes and tossed the empty can at an armadillo poking its head out of the underbrush by the road. The little critter's armor proved resistant to low-velocity aluminum. Rommel nodded approvingly at the evolutionary process, unaware that the armadillo would be hit by a semi the next morning.

They curved down the onramp, and sped back into the blurry world of travel, hemmed in by pine tree cliffs, and those metal barriers that keep people from driving into gorges. They'd be on the road for another 100 miles before stopping again, such was their routine, but Rommel, too late, realized he was hungry. They passed a blue sign listing lodging. A blue sign listing gas stations. A blue sign for restaurants. NEXT EXIT 1 MILE.

Godammit. Only a mile to Waffle House. 99 too soon. Hell is the unfulfilled desire for a patty melt.

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Next: Chapter 4 - EOE